need help with BMS trials

[Guest guest]

Hi all!

My computor has been down for more than a week. I finally had to break dopwn

and get a new one. I received this letter from Judy Orem, and am passing it on

to you. I hope that you can help.

Yesteray I was up at OHSU with a couple friends who were seeing Dr Druker. He

told both of them that they need to get on the BMS trials NOW. Both are

chronic but having difficulty controlling their counts with 800 Gleevec.

OHSU won't have the phase II trial before July at the earliest due to feet

dragging from the board that oversees new trial requirements at OHSU. Admin

type people and not doctors.

There are five different protocols that are involved with Phase II so that hope

is that Ray and Ginny can get into one. The problem that needs help is that BMS

is considering closeing phase II now and waiting for six months to go to phase

III. Novartis wanted to do a similar thing but the petition convinced them that

the need and interest was there to enlarge the phase II trial. Those new folks

got on the drug but were not officially part of phase II. That meant that when

Gleevec was approved they no longer continued to get their drug like the real

phase II folks are doing. Rather they were a ready market for purchasing

Gleevec and were advocates to their health insurance companies to get them to

add Gleevec to their prescription list.

What I think we need now is another gound swell from the cml community to go

after BMS to get them to expand rather than close the phase II trials. That's

where you come in. We need someone who is part of that community to shake,

rattel and roll the group into doing another petition or some such to get this

done. Can you see if there might be some interest in pushing BMS (CO.) to

increase rather than shut down phase II? Please see if you can get some

interest out there to help the folks that Gleevec isn't enough for and who need

the new BMS drug now.

I talked with , on the LA phase I trial, and she feels great. Since she was

more advanced she is slower to get cytogenetic results but her counts are under

control and PCR shows improvement. The best part is she feels alive again. She

said they are getting really good results at LA and the side effects are

un-noticeable for her or her friends on the drug.

Any help is appreciated.

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